Famitsu this week has a ten-page feature on the future of games, with commentary provided by some of Japan’s top game creators. Find below some notable excerpts.

Hideaki Itsuno (Capcom) – really wants to make a sequel to Dragon’s Dogma, as the first game’s world was about two-thirds the size of what he’d envisioned. And he still has more ideas, like running above enemies and jumping to catch a hold of them. He’d also like to try making a fighting game, he has an idea for something new where your advantages and disadvantages are not decided by your skills and experience.

Motohide Eshiro (Capcom) – wants to make a belt floor action game. Something with today’s technology, but similar to Final Fight. He thinks that overseas developers do amazing work, but Japanese developers won’t succeed using the same methods. He’d like to focus on new ways to play games.

Goichi Suda (Grasshopper Manufacture) –Killer is Dead is still in progress. He asks that you please wait a little longer until new information is shared. He thinks nowadays online play is an essential component for gaming, so he’s like to incorporate social elements into his work. He is also planning to launch a new, personal project.

Kenichi Ogasawara (Tecmo Koei) – wants to make another Warriors pillar to go along with Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors. He hopes to make an open-world game. He’s said before that he’d like to make a sequel to Bladestorm, but whether or not that’d be open-world he doesn’t know. He’d like to do trial and error testing to find out how to present battles in an open-world style.

Yosuke Hayashi (Team Ninja) – the team is working hard to ensure the female fighters’ skin in Dead or Alive 5 give off a soft presentation. (Putting resources to work, I see.) Also, they’re making some moves with the Ninja Gaiden series.

Keiji Inafune (Comcept) – one of Monster Hunter‘s popular features is that people can play together and team up. He wants to make a game that a billion people can play. (If it reflected society’s part, that is.)

Naoki Yoshida (Square Enix) – wants to be able to put anything the player can imagine into Final Fantasy XIV. Personally, he’d like to play in Final Fantasy VII‘s Gold Saucer in Final Fantasy XIV.

Toshihiro Nagoshi (Sega) – says domestic sales are falling overseas, and it’s important that developers break the status quo. He is interested in removing net components, but on the other hand, he’d like to harness the strength of titles with dramatic characteristics. He is persuaded when he sees the free-to-play gaming structure, and thinks that it might be good for an Yakuza online game in the future, however it wouldn’t simply be “Yakuza Online.”

Masayoshi Kikuchi (Sega Networks) – there is still room for development on social games. He would like to create something free-to-play.

Keiichiro Toyama (SCE Japan Studio) –Gravity Rush was a major shift from Siren, however, if the players want it, he has a good feeling they’d make a sequel. He would also like to work on a hack-n-slash game.

Nagoshi, Sega’s sales overseas are falling because they keep pushing poorly made Sonic games down our throats and simply refuse to listen to the fans who constantly begged for Valkyria Chronicles 3, said by many to be the best VC game released to this day. Yakuza is not the problem nor is it the answer.

http://gematsu.com/ Sal Romano

How well did VC2 sell over here?

FaithlessMr

Like crap honestly. But it [Sega] still has a market they can cater to. Just like Namco Bandai is doing with the Tales series. They can’t expect the VC series to sell buttloads in the west, but it could turn them in some profit, if they knew how to handle it better than they did.

Besides, VC 2 is clearly inferior to the first game :/

DrForbidden

Well, it wa a PSP game, so don’t go expecting it to break sales records in the US. Add to that the fact that it wasn’t good, and you have a recipe for disaster. VC3 is still a PSP game, but it was, at the very least, very good. I wouldn’t say it was better than the original, but certainly a close second. I don’t know if Sega would profit from sales in the US and Europe, but then they had to know the risks when going the PSP route…

FaithlessMr

VC 3 was made with Japan in mind…that’s why they went with the PSP. I still think they’d be able to hit some profit, by releasing the game in the west. Heck, as a digital game if it needs be. Or updating it into a PS3 HD port or whatever….But money doesn’t come easy, and Sega has been making some bad decisions as of late that jeopardize their financial status even more, which then leads to worse decisions, and it keeps going down from there :/

DrForbidden

You hit the nail right on the head. Sega’s huge misstep was to make VC3 with only Japan in mind, on the PSP. In this day and age, with the following the franchise had outside of Japan, this was a terrible mistake.
I didn’t even own a PSP until Sega announced that VC3 would be exclusive. I then promptly went and bought one, and got VC2 as well. I preordered and imported VC3 from cdjapan, which was a costly venture. There really isn’t anything else a gamer or a customer like me could have done to save Sega if Sega doesn’t want to be saved…

FaithlessMr

Unfortunately, it seems our actions don’t matter much, since we’re still a tiny minority here. Some people importing the game doesn’t get the message across, we need lots of people doing it. Remember Operation Rainfall? They’re almost reaching their goal, the US only needs Pandora’s Tower now, and that happened mostly because they managed to get lots of people to do it, so that the publishers couldn’t help but notice.

KingdomPersona

But Colors and Generation was Great games :(

FaithlessMr

I can vouch for that, but these games still had some design flaws which the classic titles didn’t. Seriously, the classic Sonic games were really fluid, besides the dreadful water levels I can’t think of classic Sonic levels I don’t care much for.

z_merquise

Can’t Sega just let other publisher localize it? I remember there’s one publisher who was actually interested in localizing Valkyria Chronicles 3.

Not sure if that was Aksys or XSeed but one thing I’m sure was that they stated in their forum that they would like to work on it if they were given the chance.

FaithlessMr

And that would be another way for Sega to make some munny out of VC. By letting someone else pick the game up and localize it. But just like NB, they don’t want to give their franchises to no one else, and simply refuse to let us have it.

But I hope that just like NB, they reconsider their ways eventually, so we may get to see VC 3 in the west soon. I’ll have to keep training on my japanese to risk an import here. But it’d be so worth it, the game looks awesome :D

z_merquise

Motohide Eshiro (Capcom) – wants to make a belt floor action game. Something with today’s technology, but similar to Final Fight.

YES! YES! YES! Please Capcom, make it happen. It’s the 2D arcade beat-em-ups by Capcom what made me a huge fan of the company back then.

I really wanted to see Captain Commando or Final Fight revived in that way. Or much better if they create a new IP. And also please, no outsourcing to mediocre developers.

I really hope to see Suda51 writing the stories and at the same time directing a game again. I think No More Heroes 1 was the last game where he acted as the game designer, story writer and director. Nowadays, he’s more of a ‘creative director’ with little (or perhaps, none at all) involvement in creating the actual game.

Yosuke Hayashi (Team Ninja) – the team is working hard to ensure the female fighters’ skin in Dead or Alive 5 give off a soft presentation.

I don’t what that is exactly but I like the sound of it.

xMCXx

Yes, please make a Dragon’s Dogma sequel! One of the few games I really had fun with this year.

Square Enix wants to put something like the Gold Saucer from FF7 into FF14, I think that it could actually work. After all, they did copy the Gold Saucer from FF7 and made Serendipity from FF13-2 similiar to it. I think that it is a great idea!

xMCXx

Never ever compare the paradise that is the Gold Saucer to that moneywhoring Serendipity! ; P

I think you are mistaken, I have played in the Gold Saucer and Serendipity in both my games an I can honestly say that Serendipity is where Square Enix got it right. Serendipity is the best paradise/gambling place in video games!

whiteferrero

what? serendipity has 2 games. an evil slot machine, and a poor choco racing game (coz it has barely any breeding elements).
okay, maybe 4 counting the sazh dlc. But really, poker with super easy opponents, and that other game…
Golden saucer wins – snowboarding, submarine action, and best of all, not the games, but dates with aeris and tifa, (and barett if that’s ur thing) XD

I’m not joking, I am serious. The card games from the Sazh DLC are really fun, as well as the chocobo races, I hated the slots though. I always left my system on and did something else while I left auto-play on, so that I could get the lucky coin fragment.

KingOptimusOrigins111

The future of gaming is Versus XIII, the true figure still hidden in the sleep.

KingKellogg The Waffle Haggler

Man this has been my most anticipated game for 6 years,that really says something.

KingOptimusOrigins111

Its like Batman The Dark Knight Rises. The quality is just too high to fail even though we haven’t seen much and that’s saying something.

KingKellogg The Waffle Haggler

Well The batmans werent my favorite :P just not my cup of tea

But Im not a Nolan fan,but I am a huge Nomura fan :D he makes gold

bebestorm117

well said.

KingOptimusOrigins111

I mean its 6 years in the making no way it can’t fail.

bebestorm117

I knew what you meant.. Hopefully Versus will claim 2013

KingOptimusOrigins111

If we get a release date a TGS 2012 hopefully.

EspadaKiller

Oh yes, totally looking forward to Versus. One of my most anticipated game of all time lol.

http://www.facebook.com/JaeWhy SasuleUchiha

Dragon’s Dogma sequel
Definitely want it, I haven’t played the first game so I don’t know about the story, etc. How about the main character can transform into dragon? Doesn’t have to transform into literal dragon but dragon-man sort of. So I could treat Dragon’s Dogma as a spiritual successor to Breath of Fire :D

Suda51
Everything this guy touches become gold, all of his game are fun.

Need more games like this, Demon’s Souls was a Japanese intervention into tired old RPGs, and look how it shines.

Japanese devs need to keep remaking the formula like this. Demon’s Souls was pure ingenuity and thoughtfulness of game design at work, straight from Japan.

rockman29

Also why isn’t Atlus or From Software on this list. Atlus has some of the best PR stateside one can find.

KingKellogg The Waffle Haggler

Demons souls was amazing,and dark was good too(not as good) We need more games that try new things like they did

DrForbidden

1). Motohide Eshiro (Capcom) – Am I the only one who has no idea what ‘belt floor action’ is? o_0
2). Yosuke Hayashi (Team Ninja) – If future Ninja Gaiden games are anything like NG3, NOTHANKYOU. NG3 is the first NG game to have a Metacritic review score of less than 70. That’s an achievement, Hayashi. Give yourself a pat on the back.
3). Toshihiro Nagoshi (Sega) – Says the company that delayed the release of Anarchy Reigns outside of Japan by 9 months? Really? And considering all the stupid decisions made by the company over the Virtua Fighter and Valkyria Chronicles franchises, he had the audacity to say that? Sega can’t really be this clueless, can they? On second thought, they probably are. It would be terrible to see an industry legend like Sega finally die with a whimper, but given the way they do business these days, it is inevitable. Hell, if it wasn’t for Platinum Games dragging them along these past few years, they’d probably be dead already.

ekka4shiki

Naoki Yoshida (Square Enix) – wants to be able to put anything the player can imagine into Final Fantasy XIV. Personally, he’d like to play in Final Fantasy VII‘s Gold Saucer in Final Fantasy XIV.

Sounds good. If only XIV didn’t have monthly subscription fee, i can see myself playing it in the future because to me it looks much more solid now with him at the director seat. Well, Square Enix, how about give this guy a chance to direct offline maintitle FF? Reading some of his interview, i kind of like his vision on gaming. Not to mention, Toriyama got enough chances already.

Yosuke Hayashi (Team Ninja) – the team is working hard to ensure the female fighters’ skin in Dead or Alive 5 give off a soft presentation. (Putting resources to work, I see.) Also, they’re making some moves with the Ninja Gaiden series.

Well well well ….

KingKellogg The Waffle Haggler

toriyama sucks >:(

Kobracon

Man alot of that sounds good. Except for the DOA thing….uhm…yeah be creepier Team Ninja….

Yakuza online…could work..

KOEI! MAKE ANOTHER KESSEN!

A Final Fight kinda game in todays consoles from CAPCOM?! DO WANT!

http://gematsu.com/ Zero

I would like to see Famitsu do features like this more often. I would enjoy hearing from some of the other JP creators as well.

Seems like everyone really loves Dragon’s Dogma. I played the demo and loved the combat. It was really awesome. I just couldn’t help but try and wait for a complete edition of the game. It is Capcom, and the game already has a bunch of DLC. I do plan to buy it, I just hope my choice to wait for a complete edition pays off.

Nagoshi, call up the people who market games for sega in the west. Tell them to actually do some real work, you know, tell people about games from Japan that they are localizing.

I swear, they can’t market for crap. I didn’t even know Yakuza 4 was out in the west, one day I was browsing the games at my local best buy and just saw it sitting there. The same thing happened with Dead Souls. If people like me have no idea when the game is coming out, how do you expect to sell it to people that don’t actively visit video game websites?

Look at Atlus and NIS America. They make most of their profit off Japanese games they bring to the west. You are doing it wrong, Sega. I hate to tell you that, but it’s the honest truth.

The first step is identifying the audience that wants to buy the game. The next step is to market it wisely, make sure people know about it well before the release date. When the time for release is near, turn up the dial and release more promos for the game. One crucial final step is to release the game at the right time. Don’t be stupid and try to compete with the next big thing from a well known western developer. At the same time, don’t release the game the same week a new Final Fantasy comes out. You could also consider offering good Pre-Order bonuses, or even a special edition of the game.

I’m not saying spend a crap ton to get an ad on tv. Do developer walk through videos, blog about it, release multiple trailers. Something! Anything! It’s no wonder they are struggling so much in the west. They bring over quality games from Japan, and they basically doom it to failure by releasing like one trailer for the game.

Is Inafune-san hinting at a possible MMO project? That could be interesting.

I take it Team Ninja is working on another volleyball Dead or Alive game after DOA 5? What’s next, Dead or Alive Volleyball One Mirrion Bewbs edition? They should just release a kinect dating Dead or Alive game in Japan. Yeah, that type of game. I swear, if they marketed it any at all, That would sell some 360’s, no doubt. With all the jokes aside, I would like to buy Dead or Alive 5. It looks like a fun game, I really enjoyed the 3rd game a few years ago.

Also… Dear Tecmo – Where is my Monster Rancher HD? Someone please make it happen!! I want that to happen so bad.

zakou

It’s funny reading some of your posts because what you post is exactly what I have in my mind xD

Good points you made about Sega and lol im also waiting for DD complete edition as im doing it with skyrim.

http://gematsu.com/ Zero

Gosh, thanks for the nice reply. I really hope us waiting for the complete edition does pay off.